Developing E-Commerce Apps
Shift in User Expectations:
Gone are the days when customers flocked the mom pop stores for shopping requirements. Supermarkets erased them from the eyes of people. Life became so much comfortable, then with the internet stores started popping up online. Some focusing on specific brands and while others became online super markets. It’s not just the electronic, books or fashion accessories even daily needs like groceries, cosmetics, gardening equipments etc . And then came the era of smartphones, people no longer want to sit at their desktops to purchase. They want everything to be agile and buy even while travelling through their smartphones. And they propelled the need of efficient and beautiful UX on all the devices they use.
Market for mobile platforms
Mobile smartphone penetration is still at 25% in 2015 and it is estimated to reach 92% by 2018. The most used and prevalent mobile platforms right now are Google Android and Apple IOS. Where the IOS is highly concentrated on high end market segments and Android has found its patrons from budget conscious consumers. IOS market share is more than 20% whereas Android has 54% market share.
Any E-commerce stores can’t afford to stay oblivious these users who are always lithe. And usage of smartphones across supply chain and delivery will increase the efficiency and profit margin for the players.
Development Strategy
For any new E-commerce player in the market, they needs to cater to the needs of people in a way they prefer to order for them. That might be when a user is working on his workstation might be on his tablet while he is reading something or it might even be on 3-5 inch mobile smartphones. The simple strategy is to develop an E-Commerce website which will the first point of contact for the users. This website displays the products and lets the user pay for the product through a secure connection. And track the delivery for the product. There should feasibility to support the supply chain of the products and deliveries. The requirement from the user side of things is that website should be responsive and focus on good user experience.
The functionalities of search for a product, filtering through a list of products, add a product, track delivery, place an order and communicate with the payment gateway or might be Paypal or Bitcoin is communicated through Server side coding. This requires using either of PHP, Node.js , Erlang, JSP or Python Languages. If these functionalities are abstracted from, how these are shown to user and user experience. These can be used across platforms. Only the front-end needs to be developed. For front end development, We can develop Javascript, HTML/CSS based responsive Web apps utilising the backend services we have developed and native mobile apps for all platforms.
To develop all this piece of technology either the firms can develop in-house web development skills using PHP, Erlang, JSP and varied other languages and maintain the software, databases and the whole end user connectivity. Or they can hire a Web development agency to do this job for them. If usage of Open source is not a problem, then the development cost can be reduced. There are some very good Open source E-commerce implementations available in the market. However, the strategy should be such that, the backend software is flexible enough to use the same of mobile apps as well.
Once the backend server coding and configuration is done and user can access the website through their mobile browser. Then a native mobile app needs to developed for major platforms. Here the development becomes a bit tricky. Focus on Android, as the market share is higher. But ensure the apps needs to work on full range of Android devices this is extremely difficult for a new E-commerce player with a limited budget. Fortunately, you can employ app development agency to develop the Android mobile app. Across the globe, there are several famed app development agencies you can go it. It would cheaper and faster for to launch. These agencies develop IOS apps as well so you don’t need to worry about that either.
You can simply forget about the nuances of app development with these agencies and focus on sourcing the materials and products. Even if you chose the other way round, you can use the same Backend core developed for website for Mobile Apps as well. This will reduce the maintenance efforts.